When He Closed His Eyes
by whenallthegoodnamesaregone
Summary: Sherlock had promised never to do it, he'd sworn to himself that he wouldn't. But he did, he was breaking his most important and safest rule after the fall... He was checking up on John. Post Reichenbach. Angsty.


For BenaddictedCumberbabe.

This was done for a prompt and also a gift! please enjoy, a bit more angst than I had intended but to too much.

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When he closed his eyes, closed his eyes into that deep and lachrymose pain of which used to be his 'placid' mind, all he saw, all he witnessed was that scene. That man- he couldn't bear to say his name- cascading to the floor like someone had just carelessly dropped him, the crimson flower that had bloomed on the battleship grey pavement like a spilled scarlet inkwell, had flowed freely as if it were natural to do such a thing.

He relived the whole thing, whenever his mind sank back into the shattered reminiscence of his memories; he relived it. The scene, this cruel display of a stage play he could do nothing about, would always seep through like the black cloud that it was, like the dark horse that the man was.

He relived it every time. His heart, nothing but a useless organ to him now, had pumped madly as if every beat was his last; his eyes were dry that day. They weren't dry the next day, or the day after that. He relived it every time.

_Every _damn _time!_

_'Okay John, concentrate now'_

He said concentrate but really there was nothing to concentrate _on, _and his mind was a good as gone by now, his brain was about as defunct as a slab of meat on a chopping board.

He couldn't sleep, whenever he did, the blood red curtains would raise once more on this horrifying affectation of gut wrenching irony. The audience knew what was going to happen, but they couldn't do anything but shout at the actors.

And he had shouted, he had bawled that man's name until it had torn his throat to shreds, every night he would wake and sob that man's name—_Sherlock's _name—into the pillows and the cold, dysfunctional comfort they provided.

He knew he was gone, he knew that his mind, even at its most sane, even at its safe lighthouse in the stormy sea, was mixed and chaotic.

So he wasn't surprised when he thought he saw Sherlock that day.

It was from across the street, he had seen the tall, dark haired man; he looked the same as he always did. That convoluted, curly hair he so familiarly remembered feeling coil around his fingers; those entrancedly sculpted cheek bones that he could still feel as he mapped them with his fingertips; and of course, the main attraction, the most exquisite and startling part of the robust man's anatomy: those eyes, of which John could have gotten lost in for decades, could have swam deep in and lost his mind to.

_Preferred _to lose his mind to, preferred it against losing his mind to this sadist like, sickening puppet show in which he was the wooden marionette to a thousand unspoken feeling and emotions.

To say he wasn't surprised wasn't saying that he didn't feel something.

As soon as he saw the statuesque man, his mouth filled with hundreds of apologies, his body slouched under the weight of numerous angry comments, uncountable sobs, and immeasurable amount of tears. He wanted to throw everything he had at the man, show him how he was coping, he would scream, he would bawl, he would shiver and sob and collapse to the cold concrete until all he could say was sorry.

Sorry, I'm sorry I made you do that, I'm sorry I wasn't good enough to anchor you to this world, I'm sorry I failed you, I'm sorry I couldn't save you.

He hadn't trusted his own mind that day, mind you, who would trust such a mangled, impoverished spectacle of dog's meat?

His mind, his once secure and conclusive, once chivalrous and dauntless mind hadn't believed his eyes, he hadn't once accredited that that man, that once so bright beacon of light that had shone so intensely into his life and chased away all his shadows, was actually stood there, presented for the world to see him.

After all, how could someone come back from the murky depths of the grave?

John knew, _witnessed, _ the hearse going into the ground, he knew there was a body there, he had spent the last year trying not to cry in front of the marble, intimidating tombstone that was meant to be a grave. In John's mind it acted more like a metal barricade in his mind, holding him back both physically and mentally. Every time he would freakishly develop even the slightest pattern of a thought, that grave, that gaping, black slab would stop the idea before it had even started to create a framework of something that was coherent.

That was one of the reasons why he continued to march on, he didn't stop, he didn't linger, he barely left enough time for his mouth to drop open before he was persisting in his pace through London.

It simply couldn't be him, it just wasn't possible. He knew his mind was uselessly screwed as it was and he wasn't about to acquiesce that he was seeing Sherlock, for the fear that maybe he would wake up and start talking with him, start believing that he was still alive and beginning to recollect the miniscule smear of hope he had left in him to think that, maybe, everything was back to normal, maybe, he could start to live his life again. Only to then be distraught to find that the Sherlock he was seeing, no one else was seeing. To have to go through more damage, to have to be thrown and rattled about by his peers who all pitied him like a starving mutt, to have to go through that_ again_ was an unbearable thought.

That's why he didn't even stop to look at the figure once more as he breezed away, he couldn't stand the pain of seeing that face again, just couldn't.

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He knew he shouldn't have, he had told himself over and over, iterated the phrase on many a companionless night. He was never to go and involve himself again; he was never to show his face again. What he had done had not only disgraced his pride but had also destroyed the mind of the only person he held most dear, and that, as obviously put as it may be, broke the usually 'heartless' detective's beating organ.

The man had awoken those senses, those contemporary and rapturous emotions in him. He was far better than any long drag on a cigarette; he was better than all the cases in the world; he was even better than any 9% drug solution he used to inject when he was younger, and regrettably, within the first kiss, Sherlock found himself being addicted to a whole new, different drug.

The drug of John Watson; of course it had all ended, it all had to end eventually, he just didn't expect it would end like this. So lonely, so detached, so engulfed in in the flames of despondency, flames of which curled around him, reminding him about what he had done, what he had put his dearest person through.

That's why he couldn't bear it, that's why he violated his one and only, safest rule he had ever made since the fall.

He checked up on his army doctor, the once brave and once courageous John Watson.

What he witnessed that day, stood on the battle ship grey pavement, the charcoal sky mirroring dreary London at the horizon, had torn him to pieces. The face that looked over at him for a split second wasn't the face of the man he knew. His once plump and healthy looking cheeks has shrunken in on themselves, threadbare stubble stood out on the man's once smoothly shaven chin, his eyes that once sparkled and swam were now dull like stones and held no twinkle to them at all.

But the thing that had killed him the most, the thing that had churned the dagger around in his already bleeding gut was the fact that he had walked on by, as if he hadn't seen him there at all.

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This was the prompt given to me by benaddictedcumberbabe...  
"a cute, short story about Sherlock secretly checking up on John after The Fall "  
I'm sorry it wasn't more fluffy!  
I hope you enjoyed it!

Follow me on tumblr at .com  
Please leave feedback, it's much appreciated!


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